UT2003 like terrain in Maya?

[pyromania]

If you are just using file textures you should use a layered texture node instead of the layered shader. It will probally give you better blending support.

You should also try setting the default color for your textures to black. That way when you paint the alpha mask you won't get that brightning effect.

[hellbender]

yeah....i see. Thnak you :)

There is, instead of file texture mode, a way to blend textures using the vertex color?

As i know UT2003 uses vertex (layer) color to identify the texture to draw on a specific vertex.

mumble.....

[SaucyJack]

Hey hellbender,

Im trying to do a similar thing in Maya. Can't quite get my head around it though. I know that layered textures are the way to go as a friend of mine worked in the game industry using that exact technique. The results he showed me were pretty cool but i can't post them here cos the games not out yet and ill get sued.

Anyway, can you post a pic of how far you've got.

:thumbsup:

[hellbender]

here it is....the first try using a layered shader.

three color textures and two masks.

i painted the masks "interactively" using 3d paint tool in maya:

- created a copy of landscape;
- assigned it a black texture;
- put the object invisible;
- loaded the black texture as a mask between two layer of the layered shader;
- painted the mask;

same for the second mask.

another question: now i see the preview in the viewport of the layered texture like sort of a blurry thing, is there a way to obtain a more detailed preview in viewport?

[hellbender]

here is the shader....

[SaucyJack]

Hi

Nice start. Your way ahead of me.

"another question: now i see the preview in the viewport of the layered texture like sort of a blurry thing, is there a way to obtain a more detailed preview in viewport?"

I could be wrong but don't you put an empty layer on top in the shader to enable you to see it in the viewport.

Pretty sure my friend used a different technique to what you mentioned with out using masks. I better check with him. One more thing, UT2003's environments were created using the UT level editor, right? Just wondered what appraoch it uses for texture blending because the results are pretty nice indeed. Can't be as complex as maya's shading networks.

Lata

[MasonDoran]

map your transparency map to the transparncy of its own shader, and also to the transparency of its slot in the layered shader.
This will get rid of that lightened affect. Make sure the bottom layer is to the far right.

Also....you can create a layered texture and then map that to a shader....giving unlimited amount of layering possiblities.


Also, are you aware that you can paint transparency maps and bumpmaps with the 3dpaint tool without doing any funny shader assignments or whatever? Even use custom brushes and painteffects to paint on a simple 2d texture.

[MasonDoran]

Hellbender...to use vertex color...i strongly suspect the vertex color is nothing more then a greyscale color range that is baked into the transparency of the texture map....they do this for lightmaps so they probably do this for texture blending as well.

Mayas hypershade is just a nonlinear representation buts its all the same.

[MasonDoran]

oh...i see u figured it out....

[EricNE]

Is there any way that I can thus access the interpolated color OR alpha values from my mesh within the hypershade such that I can make the connections into the shader network? There seem to be shader utilities for just about anything (a samplerInfo node seems to grant me access to info such as position, normal, uv, etc), but I can't for the life of me figure out how to access color or alpha info. Painting an alpha mask isn't practical for my application, as I'd need to make them extremely high res and they would have to cover the entire object for it to work. However, the object is already highly tesselated and my vertex colors and alphas are going unused. Any ideas?

Thanks!

Eric

[MasonDoran]

you are probably looking for the cpv node which is a plugin....comes with Bonus Tools in 5.

It may not work as you expect...but u can always export your vertex colors as an alpha map and use that instead.

[EricNE]

Thanks 2byts! I'll look into the cpv node and let you know if it works.

[EricNE]

Anyone using Maya 6.0 or 6.01 know what happened to this plugin from the Bonus Tools? The Bonus Tools for 5.0 include both "cvColorShader" and "hwColorPerVertexShader", the version for 6.5 includes only "hwColorPerVertexShader", and the version for 6.0 / 6.01 includes neither. However, the documentation for version 6 of the Bonus Tools mentions how to use those plugins and lists them as if they were included. From the Bonus Tools documentation for 6.01 "Create CPV Render Node This is a color utility plug-in that allows you to software-render color per vertex assigned to polygonal geometry." I have downloaded the bonustools6.0, 6.01, and 6.01 december 3 releases with no luck and even their knowledgebase seems to require a Platinum support subscription.

Does anybody have a version of this plugin for 6.0?

If there's just no availibility of it for my version of Maya, any ideas on how else I could access vertex color or alpha values from within the hypergraph? Sadly baking to an alpha map isn't an option, given obscene amount of texture memory it would require to look comparable to using vertex colors or alphas to do the blending.

Thanks for the help,

Eric

[Koogle]

could anyone do a tutorial on setting this up in maya?

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